OX-DP 225 is a copolymerized fatty alcohol polyether non-ionic surfactant, developed for cleaning systems that cannot live with a foam blanket. It wets and penetrates quickly, lifts oil from hard surfaces by emulsifying and dispersing it, and then holds foam down instead of generating it.
The grade dissolves readily in water, which keeps make-up simple, and it biodegrades completely, which matters where the discharge consent is tight. That combination is why it turns up in cleaners that run in spray equipment, in air-agitated tanks and in barrels, where a foaming surfactant stops working long before it runs out of detergency.
Formulators specify it in hard-surface degreasing concentrates, spray cleaning agents, low-foam commercial washing detergents and commercial dishwashing rinse aids. Plating and anodizing shops meet the same chemistry in the cleaning stages ahead of the line, where foam in a spray header or at the tank weir is a production problem rather than a cosmetic one. It belongs to the copolymerized fatty alcohol family of non-ionic surfactants, which is why the wetting performance holds up at low addition.
The product is supplied as a colourless transparent liquid in bulk, with a documented specification on every batch. In paint chemical supply, formulations often call for precise mixing and application. A supplier working with Fengfan's low-foam surfactants used them to improve the stability and application behaviour of their paints, which brought smoother finishes and fewer application errors for both industrial and consumer clients. That formulation work improved customer satisfaction and opened up new market reach for the supplier.
| Parameter | Specification | Method |
|---|---|---|
| Appearance at 25 °C | Colorless transparent liquid | Visual inspection |
| Ionic type | Non-ionic | - |
| Colour, APHA (Pt-Co) | 30 or below | GB/T 3143-1982 |
| Water content, % w/w | 0.5 or below | Karl Fischer, GB/T 11275-2007 |
| pH, 1% aqueous solution | 5-7 | GB/T 6368-2008 |
| Cloud point, 1% aqueous solution | 27-31 °C | GB/T 5559-2010 |
| Wetting and penetration time | Under 14 seconds at 0.1% active substance | - |
| Foam behaviour | No foam above 30 °C at 0.1% active substance | - |
| Solubility | Water-soluble | - |
| Biodegradability | Completely biodegradable | - |
What the cloud point tells you
A 1% solution turns cloudy between 27 °C and 31 °C. That clouding is the surfactant coming out of solution, and it is the same mechanism that stops it foaming: once the solution is warm, foam collapses instead of standing.
That makes working temperature the first thing to check before fixing a dosage. A spray washer or an air-agitated cleaning tank running in that band wets the work and lifts oil without a standing foam layer, so there is less drag-out, fewer top-ups and nothing spilling over the weir. A process run cold, well below the cloud point, will foam more from the same dose, because the surfactant stays fully dissolved.
How to read it against your line
Non-ionic surfactants with a much higher cloud point behave differently: they stay soluble, and foam, at temperatures well above this one. That suits a boil-out tank, not a spray header. This grade is deliberately low, so it earns its place where foam is the constraint rather than the goal.
Bench work at room temperature does not predict plant behaviour. Run the test at the temperature of the working bath and at the concentration you intend to use, then judge foam height after agitation rather than the look of the liquid in a beaker.
Cloud point is also the value to write into your incoming specification. A batch that clouds at the wrong temperature behaves like a different product in the tank, even when every other measured value matches.
Plating quality is settled before the part reaches the tank. Grease, polishing compound and handling oil have to be off the surface, and a wetting surfactant is what lets a cleaner reach the metal instead of sitting on top of the soil.
In an industrial metal plating process, the surfactant normally enters at the soak or spray pre-clean and again at the electro-clean stage. It lowers the surface tension of the cleaner so the liquor penetrates blind holes, recesses and the gaps between racked parts, then emulsifies the oil so the following rinse carries it out.
Foam is the constraint. Spray nozzles lose pressure, barrel loads blind, and foam spilling over the tank edge drags cleaner into the rinse — all of which surface later as adhesion failures or stained deposits. A grade that stops foaming once the bath is warm removes that failure mode without giving up wetting power.
Because it carries no ionic charge, it does not add to the ionic load of a cleaner built on caustic soda, silicates or phosphates. It is also used in the cleaners that sit ahead of an electroless nickel plating process, where a fully wetted, water-break-free surface is what the deposit needs in order to start evenly.
Confirm the final dosage in your own cleaner: the level that gives a water-break-free surface on your parts, at your working temperature, is the one to write into the formula.
Electroless nickel deposits evenly only where the surface is evenly clean and evenly wet. A surfactant that pulls down the surface tension of the pre-clean and the rinse lets the liquor reach blind holes, threads and the inside of tubular parts, so the nickel phosphorus layer starts from the same surface everywhere.
The electroless nickel plating process also puts a premium on foam control. Baths are filtered continuously and agitated gently, and a surfactant that foams in the filter housing or at the overflow weir becomes a maintenance problem rather than a cleaning benefit. Because this product stops foaming once the solution is above its cloud point, it suits the warm cleaning stages that sit ahead of the bath.
Formulators use it in the cleaners and rinse aids upstream of the nickel bath, and in wetting packages for related aqueous processes. If you intend to put it into the bath itself, check it against the bath's stabiliser and complexing system first — we would rather review the formulation with you than have you find out the answer at production scale.
Keep the rinse between the cleaner and the bath generous. The target is a water-break-free surface with no surfactant film left behind, because anything left on the part becomes part of the deposit interface.
Zinc nickel plating on rack and barrel brings the foam problem forward: the cleaner runs warm, the barrel turns, and a surfactant package that behaved in a still tank starts to build a foam layer that will not break.
The first symptom is usually drag-out. Foam clings to the rack and to the barrel wall and carries alkaline cleaner into the rinse, which shows up later as haze or poor adhesion. The second is maintenance: foam pushes out of the tank, blocks the overflow and trips the level sensor.
A low-foam non-ionic surfactant addresses both. Above its cloud point the foam collapses on its own, and it also suppresses foam generated by the other surfactants in the cleaner, so the tank surface stays clear through the shift. The line keeps its wetting performance — the cleaner still reaches into the barrel and wets the load — but loses the standing foam layer.
In an industrial metal plating shop the change is measured in top-ups and rinse quality rather than in a single number. Where a line is being converted from a foaming cleaner, run a side-by-side trial in one tank for a week at the working temperature before changing the whole plant. Foam height after agitation and water-break on the parts are the two readings that tell you whether it is working.
Foam does not stay in the tank. It climbs the tank wall, loads the extraction duct, coats the filter housing and dries into a film on the floor — and every one of those surfaces eventually has to be cleaned.
A low-foam surfactant changes how that maintenance shift runs. The wash solution circulates through the tank, the pipework and the filter body without building a head of foam, so the same liquor reaches the parts of the plant a brush cannot. Rinse water runs clear sooner, and there is less foam to flush out of the extraction system.
For industrial metal plating shops the saving is downtime rather than chemical cost: a plant cleaned in one pass comes back into service faster than one that needs three rinses to clear a foam layer.
Two practical notes. Clean at, or above, the cloud point of the surfactant, where foam control is strongest. And check the pump seals and gaskets against the cleaner you are using, not only against the surfactant.
Foam also masks faults. A tank that foams hard hides a falling level, a blocked filter or a pump running dry, and the metal plating process then fails for a reason nobody was watching for.
On a phone housing or a laptop shell, anodised aluminium is a visible surface. A streak, a colour shift between parts or a patch that takes dye differently is a reject, and the cause is usually upstream in the cleaner.
The aluminum anodizing process used for consumer electronics runs to tight cosmetic tolerances: the oxide has to be even enough that the dye, or the natural finish, reads the same across the part and across the batch. Oil, fingerprints and polishing residue all interfere with that — and so does foam, because bubbles sitting against the surface during cleaning leave a spot that only appears after anodizing.
A low-foam, fast-wetting surfactant gives the cleaner the reach it needs without the bubble layer. It penetrates the oil film, lifts it into the liquor and lets the rinse take it away, so the surface that enters the anodizing tank is uniformly water-wet.
For a finishing shop the practical checks are a water-break test on the rack before anodizing and a colour comparison across the batch after dyeing. If either drifts, the cleaner stage is the first place to look.
| Check | What to compare | Why it decides the swap |
| Ionic type | Non-ionic, matching the grade on your current data sheet | Charge is the first screen. A non-ionic wetting agent can stand in for another non-ionic one; an anionic carrier such as OX-401 does a different job in an acid zinc bath and cannot be replaced by this product, whatever the wetting figures say. |
| Cloud point | 27-31 °C on a 1% aqueous solution | The cloud point is the temperature where foam collapses. A grade that clouds at 45 °C will keep building foam in a spray washer running at 35 °C, so the two liquids behave as different products on your line even when both are labelled non-ionic. |
| Wetting speed | Under 14 seconds at 0.1% active substance | If the grade you run now wets faster or slower, the contact time or the dose has to move with it. Match this number before you compare drum prices. |
| Dosage basis | Active substance, not drum weight | Both the wetting time and the no-foam-above-30 °C figure are quoted at 0.1% active. A 50% solution needs roughly twice the addition of a full-strength grade to reach the same point in the tank. |
| pH and electrolyte load | pH 5-7 at 1%, stable in strong acid and strong alkali | A cleaner built on caustic soda and one built on phosphoric acid both have to hold the surfactant in solution; check the pH window against the stage you are dosing, not against the finished concentrate. |
| Foam at working temperature | No foam above 30 °C at 0.1% active | Foam height after agitation is the reading that decides a substitution, and it has to be taken at the temperature of your tank rather than on the bench. |
| Rinse and effluent | Water-soluble, completely biodegradable | A grade that rinses clean and breaks down in the effluent can go into an existing line without reopening the discharge consent or adding a treatment step. |
| Confirming the match | Your current TDS or COA, working temperature, dose and soil type | Send these and we compare them line by line against OX-DP 225; then run both surfactants side by side in one tank for a week and judge foam height and water-break on the parts. |
In metal plating services, efficiency and quality decide who wins the work. A leading zinc nickel plating company integrated Fengfan's OX-DP-225 low-foam surfactant into its process. Because this non-ionic surfactant sharply reduced foam formation during electro plating, the line produced smoother finishes and ran at faster production times. Less foam also meant better throughput and less waste, which made the return on the investment easy to see. For shops offering electroless nickel plating services, the same approach shows how the right surfactant choice can lift operational efficiency without a major process overhaul.
An aerospace manufacturer wanted stronger durability and corrosion resistance from its components and turned to aluminum anodizing service to get it. Using Fengfan's advanced surfactants, the team achieved superior anodized aluminum finishes that held up to demanding industry expectations. The low-foam behaviour of the surfactant kept coating thickness consistent and cut down on defects, which matters greatly in aerospace work. The case shows why anodizing aluminum is central to producing anodized metal parts able to withstand harsh environments.
Choosing the right match is where most sourcing decisions stall. As a trading supplier, we keep one point of contact from first enquiry to after-sales: tell us what you are making and the conditions you work under, and we shortlist the closest matches from our supplier network, compare specifications and arrange samples before you commit to a bulk order. If something does not behave as expected, we work with the supplying partner on the cause and a practical fix, and stay with the case until it is settled. Email, WeChat or WhatsApp enquiries get a reply within 24 hours.
We are Fengfan, a supplier of surface-finishing chemicals: plating intermediates, aluminium anodizing chemicals, surfactants, chemical raw materials and surface-treatment equipment. This product is part of our surfactants line, and the technical team answers formulation questions before and after the order.
Every batch is tested before it is packed, and the results are recorded for that batch. If a batch falls outside the agreed limits, it is not released. The sales team can confirm the test results for your order.
Surfactants, including the non-ionic surfactants in this range, plating intermediates for zinc, nickel and copper systems, aluminium anodizing chemicals, chemical raw materials and surface-treatment equipment. If you are building a cleaner or a bath for an electroless nickel plating process, tell us the system and we will point to the grades that fit.
Because the technical conversation continues after the drum arrives. We match the grade to the work you run — metal plating services, anodizing or industrial cleaning — answer the formulation question a data sheet cannot, and stay with the case until it is settled. You also get the wider chemistry from one contact, so the cleaner and the plating bath do not have to come from different suppliers.
We review the metal plating process you are running — bath temperature, cleaner chemistry and soil — and recommend a grade and a dosage to start from. We also answer formulation questions, supply the batch documentation and follow up on how the product performs in your line.
Packing and documentation can be discussed for your order. If you need a formulation adjustment, our technical team reviews it and confirms what is feasible before quoting — we would rather tell you what we can repeat than promise a grade we cannot.
In short: above 30 °C the surfactant stops foaming, and below 27 °C it stays fully dissolved and foams more. So a warm spray washer or air-agitated tank gets wetting without a foam blanket, while a cold process needs a trial at its own working temperature before a dosage is fixed.
Take a sample of your working bath, dose the surfactant at the level you plan to use, and check three things at the working temperature: foam height after agitation, water-break on an actual soiled part, and how cleanly the rinse clears. The same test works on a zinc nickel plating line, an anodizing line or a spray washer — the readings matter, not the look of the bench beaker.
